


Control and Admiration

by anisland



Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: Amy Dates an OC, Amy has a big crush on Selina, Amy is a domme, Amy is a lesbian, Baby Gay, Backstory, Betrayal, College, Competition, Dom/sub, Drug Use, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Femslash, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Sex, Light BDSM, Light Dom/sub, Origin Story, Rivalry, Secret Crush, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:33:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27610733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anisland/pseuds/anisland
Summary: Amy Brookheimer, president of her university's chapter of the Young Democrats, is riding high after successfully booking her political idol, Senator Selina Meyer, as a speaker. But her work, her achievements, and her rivalry with fellow student Michelle Kelley have Amy thinking that maybe, it's time for her to get laid. She decides to find a boy to play with, but she can't help remembering that time at a bar when she and Michelle shared a drunken encounter. In fact, she can't stop thinking about it.The story of how Amy came to work for Selina. Originally, this was intended as the first part of a longer piece that would build to an Amy/Selina narrative, but I likely won't finish it.
Relationships: Amy Brookheimer & Selina Meyer, Amy Brookheimer/Original Female Character, Amy Brookheimer/Selina Meyer
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is about Amy and Michelle, an OC. Apologies as always for errors missed in editing.

**April 2002**

During her last year at Penn, Amy toyed with the idea of a brief affair. Up until that point she was all ambition—nose always in a textbook, hand always the first raised in class, position always secure as the president of the university’s chapter of the Young Democrats. She argued every A minus up to an A plus, snorted Adderall and knocked back shots of espresso to pull all-nighters before sauntering into an eight am class, spent her Sundays jittering in her apartment, sitting down to do work and then immediately standing up and pacing from her desk to the television she never watched to the couch to her kitchen, then to the bedroom where she would sometimes put on ambient music, instrumental R&B maybe or occasionally, secretly, shamefully, Sleater-Kinney, who were a little too rock ’n roll (and honestly a little too gay) for someone like her with serious political ambitions, and try to melt her restlessness away with a vibrator. But it rarely did the job. 

An affair appealed to her in part because she was a young woman with needs that she couldn’t quite articulate but would surely recognize the moment she was presented with them, needs that likely involved a man or perhaps multiple men and their external reproductive organs, and also in part because Michelle Kelley, the vice president of her chapter of the Young Democrats, who until recently occupied the role of the closest thing Amy had to a friend, who like Amy spent her time at Penn focused more on achieving and less on cultivating a comprehensive social life, had begun an affair with the treasurer of the Young Democrats. Amy knew that if she wanted to keep up, she had to start fucking someone, and fast.

Finding someone to fuck shouldn’t have proven difficult. On one of her restless Saturdays, instead of trying to masturbate she took stock of what she had to offer. Blonde? Check. Ass? Check. Tits? Double check. She didn’t have much in the way of personal style, but the other Young Democrats didn’t either. Politically active people didn’t have _looks_ , except for maybe the socialists or the anarchists, but Amy wouldn’t get into bed with some Trotskyist. She was a Liberal. A Hard Line Democrat. So what if her party often slid over the needs of the poor and working class? They were less bad than the Bad Party and unlike those tattooed, pierced artsy types who gathered in coffee shops and spent their efforts on protest posters and volunteer work, the Democrats had power. Systematic power. Change happened slowly, and she rolled her eyes at the radicals who didn’t understand that issues had to be taken one at a time, in increments that were acceptable to the public. In Amy’s opinion, only power would bring about change, and she wanted a piece of it.

All the Young Democrats wore button-downs and Dockers, Polos and Tommy Hilfiger. Pantsuits and oxfords. Business casual meets yacht club meets megachurch. Amy considered the pros and cons of leaving enough buttons undone to show cleavage. Maybe her peers would call her a slut behind her back. But maybe she’d have all the boys drooling. She decided yes on the cleavage.

Another thing that stood in the way of an affair: her personality. The things she liked about herself turned other people off. Once at a Young Democrat meeting a freshman stupidly suggested that they canvas for a candidate running as an independent, and when Amy called him a useless fucktard eating his own fuck sandwich he called her a cunt and stormed off. Her least favorite professor described her as shrill to her face when she arrived at his office hours prepared to argue for a greater focus on women’s issues his public policy class. When her freshman year roommate cried over breaking up with her high school boyfriend, Amy laughed and told her to get over it. The roommate transferred to a different residence hall the next day.

It wasn’t that Amy didn’t have feelings. She knew that she had it in her to be kind and tender and vulnerable, like when her grandfather died and she hugger her mom until she stopped sobbing or when her sister’s cat slipped out of the house and she spent hours helping her look. She kept in touch with her best friend from high school, Steph, and they knew everything about each other, every insecurity, every ambition, every triumph. Amy had a heart, but didn’t wear it on her sleeve. She just didn’t tolerate bullshit. Normally she didn’t care if that repelled other people, but in the case of attracting a sexual partner it was perhaps a detriment.

She considered maybe asking Michelle how her deal with Tommy the Treasurer started, but on second consideration that strategy seemed too conspicuous. The last thing Amy wanted was to cue Michelle in on her next move. Did Michelle also view their relationship as a competition? Neither of them had ever acknowledged it openly, but when one of Amy’s papers was selected for a conference over Michelle’s, Michelle didn’t talk to her for two weeks. When Michelle’s GPA edged out Amy’s by half a point, Amy did something she never did, which was to go out with the other Young Democrats after their weekly meeting and get blackout drunk, resulting in her shuffling into class twenty minutes late the next morning, unshowered, with a splitting headache and a hazy memory: her own hands shoving Michelle against the wall in the bar’s bathroom by the shoulders, her own face leaning in closely, her own tongue in Michelle’s mouth. Amy never wanted to be one of _those_ girls. The kind who make out with other women in bars for attention. Except she did her best not to think about how she and Michelle had been totally alone in that bathroom, the smells of bleach and shit in the air around them, some sopping toilet paper resting in the sink.

Michelle was shorter than her, more slight of figure, and she had one of those smiles that went all the way up her cheeks. She was cute. Amy could admit that Michelle was the type of person who would walk into a room and everyone around her would whisper, _Oh, she’s cute_ to whoever stood next to them. She also wasn’t volatile in the way that Amy was; her anger felt quiet and smoldering and calculated. She didn’t show it so dramatically. Instead, she put on this sweet bubbly exterior, offered to do you favors and brought baked goods to Young Democrat meetings, but then behind your back she’d make deals and fuck you over, like when Amy got everyone to agree to hold a fundraiser the weekend before spring break, but when it came to the vote, everyone flipped and cast their ballots to hold it the week after. Turned out that Michelle got to them by offering to be designated driver for the bar that week. People liked her. A lot.

But Amy still had the presidency. The club elected her two years in a row because she got things done. And that was something.

The day of her weekly Young Democrats meeting, Amy decided that instead of a button up, she would wear a fitted, powder blue tee tucked into an equally fitted charcoal grey skirt, forgoing the button idea entirety. She bent over experimentally in the mirror and watched the way her ass looked. Satisfied, she also decided that tonight, she would go out with the others. It felt like the appropriate night to wear the facade of celebration; she received confirmation today that Senator Selina Meyer, the political firecracker who championed women’s issues, struggling families, and the environment, agreed to give a talk at Penn, facilitated by the club. September 11th, 2001 was still only months behind them, and Senator Meyer had been the first to turn the focus away from war and towards relief programs for the living victims and for the spouses and children of the dead. Her eight hour filibuster in 2001, while not the longest on record, left Amy dazzled—it delayed a vote that would have instituted a nation-wide ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. She bought enough time for two senators to flip, stopping the measure from passing. Senator Meyer was the sort of person Amy wanted to be, and she would claw tooth and nail to get there. As president of the Young Democrats, she knew that conversing with the Senator, entertaining her briefly, and introducing her before her speech all fell under her list of responsibilities. The notion gave her butterflies.

Amy arrived at the classroom where meetings were hosted about thirty minutes early, in part to arrange the desks in a circle, in part to assert her power. She wanted them to walk in and see her, to know that she alone presided over them, to know that no one enters before she does, that no one leaves before she tells them. Eventually Michelle and Tommy arrived together. They were holding hands. Amy clenched her fists.

Michelle flashed her stupid cute smile and waved. “Amy!” she gushed. “I heard your request for a new room got denied by the student activities board.”

This was how Michelle liked to operate. A thinly veiled attack on Amy’s productivity or ability, inevitably followed up with a solution to an issue, provided of course by her. Amy crossed her arms and waited for the second kick to her stomach.

“I talked to Cheryl in the office and I must’ve just charmed the pants off of her because she got us into the auditorium for the rest of the semester. Isn’t that great?” She paused and looked Amy up and down. “Oh. Nice outfit, by the way. I’ve never seen you look so, well. Relaxed."  
Amy felt her right canine sink into her bottom lip. “Yeah, that’s great. Incredible, actually. Give yourself a fucking medal.”

Tommy, who rarely spoke up and whose scraggly brown hair nearly covered his eyes, made an O shape with his mouth.

Michelle laughed. “You’re so funny when you’re cranky,” she said.

Amy inhaled and reminded herself that they only had about a month left of the semester anyway and that she’d soon be walking across that stage in her cap and gown, leaving Michelle, a junior, in the dust. She remembered when they first met, how they used to have fun together. They were downright friendly, spending nights at each other’s places doing homework side-by-side, making coffee runs together, getting to know each other over meal breaks. Both of them were political science majors and one semester even worked their class schedules around each other so they could pair up for group projects. Amy didn’t really know what happened to them—in fact, the last time she remembered being that friendly with Michelle was just before the kiss, practically a year ago. They never talked about it afterwards. Amy had this sinking feeling that maybe it went beyond making out; a phantom memory eclipsed her excitement over Senator Meyer for a moment—the feeling of Michelle’s hands dragging up from Amy’s hips to her breasts and pulling her hair and undoing the buttons on her pants. Was that date rape? Amy asked herself. Would she have let Michelle do that in sobriety? But she didn’t have time to ponder consent, especially considering that anything she remembered from the moments directly after the kiss could very well have been conjured by her imagination. Instead, she squared her shoulders and forced herself to smile. Tonight was her fucking night. She was about to deliver the goods.

“I have something exciting to announce, too,” she said.

Michelle let go of Tommy’s hand and also crossed her arms. “What’s your announcement?”

Tommy looked down at his empty hand with these big, forlorn eyes peaking out from under his hair. Amy scoffed. He was pathetic. Treasurers were almost always pathetic, she thought.

“I got Senator Meyer. She’s going to speak at our last meeting of the year.”

Amy hated how much she loved being smug. But she loved being smug.

Michelle’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “You did?”

“I did.”

People began filing in, and once everyone settled into their seats, Amy called the meeting to order. As she predicted, her news blew the room straight out of the water.

At the bar, Michelle unexpectedly offered to buy them a round. “Tommy said he wasn’t feeling well,” she told Amy. “But I’m glad you came out. You know it’s a special time when you come out.”

Amy laughed. She felt tired already. “I can’t remember what it’s like to use mind-altering substances for something other than studying.”

The bartender came and Amy ordered a vodka soda. Michelle asked for a red wine and slapped down a twenty. “Remember the last time you came out?” she asked.

Amy decided to play dumb. If Michelle knew but didn’t know that Amy knew, it could tip the power balance in her direction. “I remember the hangover the next day,” she said.

The bartender brought the drinks. “That was the last time we had fun together,” Michelle replied. “It was so long ago and we haven’t had fun since. I miss us being together.”

“Me too.” The answer escaped her mouth before Amy could think about it. Yes, she did miss Michelle. But she was also so fine on her own. And this whole detour through friendship land was preventing her from doing what she actually came to do tonight: find a man who wanted to fuck her.

But Michelle led Amy over to a table that was so cramped, their knees touched when they sat down. Amy didn’t feel like she could step away.

They talked, of course, about politics, their shared passion. Amy supported the federal recognition of same-sex marriage and the overturn of the Defense of Marriage Act, but Michelle favored civil unions that granted the same legal benefits as marriage. “I don’t understand what the difference is, if civil unions give you all the same rights,” Michelle said.

“But that’s my point,” Amy rebutted. “If they’re the same, why not just let it all be marriage?”

Michelle took a swig from her third glass of wine. “No, but listen—if they’re the same, what does it matter what they call it?”

Amy was also on her third drink, a little further in, and a little more tipsy. Michelle did this at least once a week, while Amy did this maybe twice a year. The alcohol made her feel all warm inside and she caught herself leaning across the table, propping herself up on her elbows. “Michelle,” she said. “I’m gonna see if I can hammer this into your styrofoam brain.”

“Oh, you’re not pulling punches,” she laughed.

“I never pull punches.” Amy smiled when she noticed her speech was slurred and her muscles were relaxed.

“Okay then, hammer it in.”  
She cleared her throat. “Okay, so two big constitutional points. One: telling the fags and the dykes that they can have civil unions but not marriage is basically a separate but equal policy, and according to precedent that should be unconstitutional because it marks them as a different class of citizens. Two: most arguments against gay marriage are religious, and as I know you know, freedom of religion also means freedom from religion—separation of church and state is supposed to be one of the founding principles of this country.”

“Okay, well—“

“Ah!” Amy flung her hand into the air. “Wait! Sub-point to my point!” Michelle burst out into giggles. “There are also religions were no one cares who’s getting married as long as you’re two consenting adults. It’s inaccurate to frame this as a religious issue because a rejection of gay relationships isn’t even built into all religions.”

“Oh my god, Amy,” Michelle said, still laughing. “You literally are defending these people to the death but you also just called them slurs!”

Amy laughed too. “What can I say? I’m a complicated woman.”

Michelle takes another sip from her wine glass and Amy also takes the lapse in conversation as an opportunity to raise her drink to her lips. But when she feels a hand rest itself lightly on her thigh, she almost spits her vodka soda across the table.

Michelle bites her lip and makes eye contact with Amy. She squeezes her thigh and runs her thumb back and forth over Amy’s skirt. “Are you sure you don’t remember what happened last time?” she asked.

For once in her life, Amy didn’t know what to do. She certainly never expected Michelle—Michelle!—to make a move on her. A deep inhale and she grasped control of the situation once again. Or at least, that’s what she told herself.

“What about Tommy?”  
“Fuck Tommy.”

Michelle slid her hand further up Amy’s thigh. “Do you remember what happened?” she asked again.

Amy didn’t experience touch very often unless it came from her own hands. Sometimes the occasional brush of the shoulder when she passed by someone, sometimes her least favorite professor getting a little too familiar and touching her arm when she didn’t want him to. This was so different. Every amount of processing power her brain had went to focus to Michelle’s touch. She didn’t know how to explain it but her consciousness felt like it was dripping. She imagined something else dripping. Oh, she thought. Wow.

“I think it’s so sexy how you just totally took command and got Senator Meyer to come,” Michelle said. Amy realized that she had probably gone too long without answering. What had her body been doing in the last few moments? Staring slack-jawed like a fucking imbecile? Michelle answered that question for her. “The way you’re staring at me says you might be into this, too.”

Amy made herself sit up a little straighter. It’s about power, she reminded herself. You have the power. She placed her hand over Michelle’s. “I remember.”

She was proud of herself. Her voice dropped a little lower. It sounded sexy. Maybe she should imagine herself talking like that when she used her vibrator, she thought.

Michelle’s mouth spread into a wide grin. “When I’m with boys, I think about the way you kissed me in that bathroom.”

“The way I pushed you into the wall?”

“Mmmhmm. The way your hand clenched around my throat.”

Amy didn’t remember that part. “Oh, I especially remember that.”

“I’ve never let anyone touch me like that before. Be so rough with me. But it’s different with you. When you choked me out and didn’t even stop kissing me, it was like fucking heaven.”

Did they have sex? Amy was starting to think no. She also liked this image Michelle had of her—it all went back to power and control. Amy was the woman would who force you against a wall and choke you. Amy was the woman who would tell you want to do and you would do it. Amy was the woman who could get what she wanted from people. Amy was the woman who others would obey. Fucking bow down.

When they arrived at Amy’s apartment, she went to pour them some more wine, but Michelle had other plans. She shoved her hand in the pocket of her pants and when she removed it, she had a dime bag hanging from between her index finger and thumb. Amy’s eyes focused on the contents, a white powder. “Is that coke?” she asked.

Michelle put an arm around Amy’s shoulder and dangled the bag in her face.“Yeah,” she said. “Wanna do lines?”

The last time Amy had sex, it was over the summer with the lifeguard at the beach who used to watch her ass as she walked away from him, and before that it was the summer before, and then the summer before that—she never fucked at school. On top of her first-time-in-a-while anxiety, she had never had coked up sex. Weed, yes. Alcohol, yes. The summer between high school and college she hooked up with someone who insisted they do tabs of acid before, but she didn’t feel anything—they must have been fake. But, she had to remind herself, control. She was in control. She was not out of her element.

“I want to,” she said. It couldn’t be much different from the Adderall, she figured. “But I want to kiss you first.”

She didn’t wait for Michelle to answer because she had figured it out. Michelle liked that she commanded control. Michelle liked that she didn’t ask. Michelle liked being taken.

Amy liked that Michelle had to look up at her to make eye contact. This was it. This was her chance to be in control. Her hand pressed itself into Michelle’s chest and she walked her slowly back against the wall, right next to the entrance to Amy’s bedroom. Michelle inhaled and her eyes went wide. She found this thrilling, Amy understood. Maybe because of the power thing, but also maybe the taboo of it. She had barely stopped to remember that they were both women. That what they were doing was gay. Downright lesbianism. But she didn’t have time to consider if she wanted to marry a woman who wore overalls, move to a cottage in Vermont, and adopt six dogs. She only knew, right then, that she needed to rip Michelle in two. In a sexy way.

Amy slammed her hands against the wall on either side of Michelle, pinning her there, and pressed their bodies together. “Do you want me to kiss you?” she whispered into Michelle’s ear.

“Yes.”

So Amy did it. She kissed Michelle. And she wasn’t even blackout drunk. Her lips were soft and full and she still tasted like wine. Amy liked that. She liked that Michelle’s body was warm and smaller than hers, and she liked how this girl almost cowered underneath her.

When Michelle started to tug at the waistband of Amy’s skirt, Amy grabbed her wrist and pressed it above her head on the wall. “I decide when,” she said.

Michelle grinned more and nodded. “Yes ma’am,” she breathed.

Oh. Amy really liked that. She pulled her into the bedroom. White sheets and comforter, black metal bed frame with no headboard, black nightstand and dresser, closet, a print of Botticelli’s _Venus_ on one wall, a window on the opposite. Not much personality, just the way Amy liked it. “Sit on the bed,” she told Michelle. Michelle sat one the bed.

Amy handed her the copy of _Atonement_ that her mom bought her for Christmas. Hardcover. Amy had never cracked it open and probably never would. “For the coke,” she said when Michelle frowned.

Michelle nodded eagerly, placed the book on the bed, and poured the coke out over the cover. She used a credit card to separate the lines and rolled a dollar bill into a cylinder. “After you,” she said. Amy snorted her line through the dollar bill and handed it over to Michelle. The act of snorting was an odd rush to begin with—it’s just like the Adderall, she told herself again.

Michelle snorted her line expertly. She’s done this so many times, Amy decided. She’s a pro. What if she’s an addict? She pushed that train of thought out of her mind.

Instead, Amy climbed onto the bed and told Michelle to lie down.

Michelle did as she was told. “Do you have a strap-on?” she asked.

Amy shook her head.

“You should get one.”

“I think I can manage.”

Michelle nodded. “I know you can manage. But it would be so hot if you fucked me with a strap on.”

Amy straddled Michelle. She slowly slid her hand up from Michelle’s waist to her neck. She grasped her around her windpipe, but didn’t press down or squeeze. Something bubbled up inside her. It was tingly, but in an emotional way. Suddenly she knew she could do anything. Even buy a strap-on. God, was this cocaine? Fuck. She could jump off the roof of her building and walk away fine. She could eat Michelle’s pussy for days without coming up for air. She could approach Senator Meyer in two weeks as president of the Young Democrats with her vice president hanging on her arm, desperate for her, wrapped around her finger. She could own this world someday.

She examined the way her hand fit around Michelle’s neck. It was perfect. She squeezed.


	2. Chapter 2

Senator Meyer was due to arrive on campus in half an hour and Amy needed to prepare to meet her. But instead of fixing her hair and smoothing her dress, classic black, sleeveless, and fitted with a skirt that ended just above the knee, checking herself in the mirror as she otherwise would before walking to campus, she found herself with her head resting back against the cushions of her couch and her legs parted with her panties around her ankles. Michelle kneeled before her, her head on Amy’s thigh, slowly pumping three curled fingers inside Amy and using her thumb to press into her clit on each thrust.

Over the last few weeks, Amy and Michelle had gone back to the way things were before—all-nighters, library visits, snack runs. But this time, they were also fucking. They’d barely spend an hour on school work before Amy couldn’t contain the urge to rub her hand over Michelle’s crotch under the library table or before Michelle needed to pull Amy on top of her on Amy’s couch. Amy had, in fact, bought a strap-on, and wearing it filled her with a sense of power. The first time she put it on, she did it alone in her apartment; one look at herself in the mirror drove her to break out the vibrator, and for the first time in she couldn’t even remember how long, she came on her own.

Michelle clearly kicked Tommy to the wayside; he moped at Young Democrats meetings, crossed his arms and pouted at Amy with his stringy hair in his face. Amy hated how much he needed a hair cut. She hated the little wisps of a beard that would never come to actual fruition on his cheeks and chin. Maybe if he put some effort into his hygiene, Michelle would still be fucking him. Maybe if he was stronger and more commanding, maybe if he was the sort of person who could lift Michelle onto the bed without even bothering to ask her if it was okay. Maybe if he was more like Amy.

Not to mention that three girls in the Young Democrats had approached Amy that week with complaints about Tommy. Complaints about how he behaved at the bar after meetings since Michelle dumped him. Turned out he was a fucking creep. After Senator Meyer’s speech, the club was meeting late to hold elections for the next year, and Amy and Michelle had already decided to present a motion preventing Tommy from holding office in the organization.

After Amy came, she pulled Michelle onto the couch and kissed her and told her how good she had been, and Michelle said “I could stay on my knees for you all day.” But as much as they wanted to continue, it was time to leave.

Amy brought Michelle into the small classroom adjoined to the lecture hall where Senator Meyer would give her speech. Amy, as always, arrived early. The Senator wasn’t due for another fifteen minutes, and aside from her and her staff, Tommy, as a member of the club’s executive board, was the only other person expected to show up before students started filing into the auditorium. And there would be students. Amy and Michelle, as well as volunteers from the club, spent the time leading up to the Senator’s visit plastering every available surface space on campus with posters, announcing it in all of their classes, sending email blasts, telling everyone they could find. Selina Meyer is coming! Selina Fucking Meyer!

Michelle sidled up to Amy and wrapped her arms around her waist. She stood on her toes to reach Amy’s neck and started kissing. “It’s so hot that you did all of this,” she whispered against Amy’s skin.

“That’s right,” Amy laughed. “Bow down.”

Michelle erupted into a fit of giggles just as Tommy entered.

He had this deer in the headlights look for a moment, but that shifted seamlessly into a frown. Amy clocked him clenching both hands into fists at his side. “I fucking knew it.”

His voice was nasally and high, which didn’t bode well if he meant to sound threatening. Tommy was twenty-one years old, but he sounded more like a boy whose voice had just cracked. Amy liked to think that he spent his alone time modeling fedoras for himself in the mirror.

Michelle removed her arms from Amy’s waist and shuffled a step away. She went to say something, but Amy raised her hand to stop her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“Yes you do!” Tommy took several steps forward, but stopped when he got about four feet from Amy, blanched as if the prospect of getting closer actually terrified him.

“No,” Amy said. “I don’t.”

“I’m gonna tell everyone,” Tommy spat out at her. “I’m gonna tell everyone you’re a pair of dykes. I’m gonna tell the fucking senator when she gets here.”

“Listen, Tommy—“ Michelle began, but Amy cut her off again.

“This is how it’s gonna go, nerd,” she said. “We all know you’re bitter about Michelle kicking you to the curb. We all know that you feel entitled to women for some incomprehensible reason. I know at least three girls at the college who are willing to publicly state that you’ve groped them without consent, tried to take them home when they were too drunk to stand, and used sexually harassing language when speaking to them.”

“Why would they say that?” Tommy asked.

“Because it’s what happened.”

“Jesus Amy, I’m not a predator. I’m just heartbroken.”

Michelle laughed. “We weren’t even dating, Tommy. Just fucking. And that was only to—“ she trailed off.

“To what?” Tommy asked, his shoulders rounding over.

Amy also realized Michelle’s mistake before she even said it.

“To get someone else’s attention,” she said.

Tommy laughed. “See? I knew it. Dykes.”

Amy’s jaw tensed and she crossed her arms. “Were you raised by wolves, Tommy? You’re such a mommy’s boy. Didn’t she teach you not to call people that?”

“You can tell anyone you want about me feeling up some bitch,” he said. “No one’ll believe you. And I’m telling fucking everyone about how you’ve turned Amy’s apartment into your personal Dinah Shore weekend.”

“Dinah Shore, huh?” The classroom door cracked open, and in walked none other than Senator Selina Meyer. “I went to one of those once. The golf tournament, I mean. Never seen so many visors in my life, and that’s not even talking about the players.”

Oh fuck. Amy wondered how much of that Senator Meyer heard. There was no way to tell by looking; Selina Meyer was unreadable with her politician’s smile and her hands clasped in front at her waist. Oh fuck, but also Oh Fuck. Selina Meyer, standing right in front of Amy, in this red dress and matching pumps, flanked by a doughy man toting a massive leather briefcase and a stout steely woman in a purple skirt and blazer.

Amy’s insides were on fire. She felt antsy, trying to balance this whole Tommy thing with the Senator’s arrival. Senator Meyer just radiated confidence and authority with her squared shoulders and the way she sauntered in. She noticed that Michelle couldn’t contain a grin and even Tommy stared with his mouth open.

A step forward and then another, and Amy found herself propelled towards the Senator with her hand outstretched. “Senator Meyer,” she said, “Welcome to Penn. I’m Amy Brookheimer, president of the university’s chapter of the Young Democrats. I just wanted to say it’s a pleasure to have you here.”

“And a pleasure to meet you, Amy,” Senator Meyer responded. “Nice dress.” She winked. For a moment, Amy thought that wink would blow her back across the room. This rockstar senator wasn’t only speaking to her, but speaking to her almost as an equal.

“So you’re the brat who wouldn’t stop calling the office,” the woman in the purple skirt and blazer said. “Thank your advisor, Dr. Blitzky. If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be here. It’s important to me that you know you didn’t get this visit through persistence.”

The Senator shook her head. “This is Phyllis Turning, my chief of staff. She’s not very endearing, but she’s extraordinary at her job. And this is Gary Walsh, my bag man.” She gestured to the man baby with the giant bag. He waved sheepishly. Amy couldn’t help but think this man baby would be Tommy in ten years.

Amy turned back behind her and waved Michelle over. “Senator, I’d like to introduce Michelle Kelley, the vice president of our organization.” Michelle trotted forward and shook the Senator’s hand with a smile.

For a moment, Amy considered glossing over Tommy. She could do that. She could make him reach out his own hand and introduce himself. But that wasn’t professional, and professionalism would get her ahead. She had to make herself look good, and there was no better person to make herself look good for than Senator Meyer. “And this is Tommy, our treasurer.” She figured that leaving out his last name was a good internal compromise.

When Amy stepped out to the podium, she felt her whole body tingle. There wasn’t a single empty seat. The walls were packed with people standing. Everyone at Penn wanted to know what the Senator had to say. And fuck Phyllis Turning. Amy made the visit happen. 

Selina Meyer spoke about her decision to vote against the Patriot Act to a captive audience. Amy watched from a chair behind the podium, Michelle sitting next to her. They made Tommy stand.

After the speech, back in the classroom, Senator Meyer cornered Amy away from Michelle. “Do you mind if I speak to you for a moment?”

“Of course, Senator.” Amy felt goosebumps erupt across her skin.

“When do you graduate?”

“At the end of this semester,” Amy said.

The Senator nodded. “Despite what Phyllis said, we came because of your persistence. I like people who will go and go and go and never give up.”

“I went to law school with Dr. Blitzky. He says you’re a stellar student and that you’ve taken the organization you represent far.”

“It was dead before I got involved,” Amy said. “We had three regular members.”

Senator Meyer smiled. “You’re a natural leader, aren’t you?”

Wow. Amy’s cheeks got hot. She was. She totally was. A natural leader. Bashful wasn’t something she felt ever, but she just wanted to smile and stare at her feet and rock back and forth. She didn’t, of course.

“How would you like to work for me when you graduate?”

Without missing a beat, Amy said, “I’d love to.”

“Excellent. Phyllis will get your details.”

Amy nodded.

“This isn’t a glamours job, Ms. Brookheimer,” the Senator said. “It’s entry level grunt work with long hours and no time for rest, but it’s where people start. Understand that?”  
“Crystal clear.”

Senator Meyer grinned. “Good. I’ll see you this summer, Amy.”

“Thank you,” Amy stammered. She hated herself for stammering. “You too.”

Amy tensed up pleasantly when the Senator placed a hand on her shoulder and nodded before stepping away. Phyllis slid into her place and copied down Amy’s email and phone number. “I’ll send you the information. The job will be in DC and you’ll start on the first of June.” She huffed and shook her head. “You’re a lucky kid, hired by a rising start in the senate. No interview even. Fucking nepotism.”

And then Phyllis fucked off. Nepotism? Not nepotism. Amy knew that Blitsky liked to grab her ass, but he knew how hard she worked and how capable she was. He recommended her out of merit. And anyway, it didn’t matter what Phyllis said. Amy was going to work for Senator Selina Meyer. Things couldn’t have gone more right for her.

After the Young Democrat’s executive board vote, in which Tommy dropped out of the treasurer’s race and Michelle was elected president, it was time to celebrate both a new direction for the club and an incredible night overall. Amy decided that she’d tell Michelle about the job later, after everything settled down. She wanted to tell her privately, because Amy knew this would mean wild sex. Instead, at the bar, they found that same table from the first night they had sex, except this time Amy pulled her chair next to Michelle’s and they spent their evening huddled together, touching arms, hands, cheeks, thighs. Kissing. Not even trying to hide it.

“Tonight was so good,” Amy said. “Isn’t this so good?”

Michelle nodded, but then she slid away from Amy just a little. Amy noticed and couldn’t place if something was wrong. Michelle still smiled, laughed, sipped her wine. But something in the air shifted, and for a second it felt like trying to press two magnets of the same polarity together—if the magnets were weak enough you could do it, but you couldn’t make them stay without putting in the extra effort.

Michelle really burst out in giggles.

“What?” Amy asked.

“You’re so stupid, Amy.” Michelle shook her head and took her hand off Amy’s thigh. “I used you, don’t you know that?”

Amy leaned away from her. She hadn’t known that. But Michelle had to believe that Amy was in control, which she was, she realized. Michelle was definitely about to tell her that she slept with Amy to gain who even knows what? What could she have possibly accomplished by sleeping with Amy, aside from sleeping with Amy? She drew a blank. Amy knew how to play this.

“And I used you, Michelle.” But wait. As soon as she said it, Amy decided she chose wrong. If she told Michelle that she used her for sex, it meant admitting that she wanted to have sex with Michelle, which meant admitting that she wanted to have sex with women, which Michelle could run with.

Michelle laughed again and leaned in. “I don’t know how you could rationalize that,” Michelle said. “No. I used you. People in this club hate you, but they respect you. I knew that if we got close again, the others would see it as your endorsement for the presidency. But then I remembered that kiss last year and how fucking hungry you were for me. I knew that was how to get back in with you. I fucked you over, Amy.”

And for a moment something flashed inside Amy. It burned hot. Something between anger and hurt, but she would never admit the hurt. She would never admit how awful it felt for someone to pretend they liked you and then just do a one-eighty.

So this time, it was Amy’s turn to laugh. “Jesus fucking Christ, Michelle. You’re the one who’s stupid.” She stood up, knowing that the end of her night was coming. “Two weeks ago, I came out to this bar with the intention of finding someone to fuck. I didn’t care who they were or what they wanted. I just wanted someone to fuck. And it doesn’t matter why you hopped in bed with me. You still got on all fours and took my strap from behind, and you still screamed my fucking name into the vacuum of fucking space when you came. I looked you straight in the eyes every fucking time. The _I love being on my knees for you_ shit? The _let me serve you_ stuff? Calling me ma’am?” Amy bent over her. She felt herself tremble. “All of that was real, and you know it. You know you wanted me. You were the only person running for fucking president! You were a shoe in! You don’t need to make excuses, baby.”

Michelle scoffed. “I don’t want you and I never did want you.”  
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Michelle.” Amy’s face broke into a manic grin, like a circus clown in a horror movie. “When you’re drowning in pointless lectures and Young Dems drama, I’ll be working for Senator Selina Meyer.”

In a flash, Michelle’s mouth made an O shape and her eyes widened. “That’s what she was talking to you about?”

“Yeah.”

Michelle shook her head. “Wait, Amy.” She smiled the fakest smile Amy had ever seen. “I was joking! I wasn’t trying to use you! I love fucking you. My pussy’s dripping wet just thinking about it. I want your tongue on my clit, I want your cock inside of me, I want—“

“Save it,” Amy scoffed.

“No, but I—“  
“I know you liked fucking me, Michelle. You’re not gonna find anyone else like me at Penn, and you know it.”

“Amy, just. Wait.” She grabbed Amy’s hand and pressed it to her own crotch, jerked Amy’s hand up and down over her pants. Amy felt a twinge between her legs when she realized that Michelle was in fact wet enough for her to feel through the fabric. She was in command and she loved it. The power practically oozed from her pores.

She yanked her hand away. “Sorry Michelle,” she mocked.

As she turned to walk away, Michelle called after her. “You’re a fucking dyke, Amy Brookheimer! A big gross fucking dyke!”

Amy didn’t look back, but she did lift her right hand in the air middle finger held high. “You’re the one who had your fingers inside of me three hours ago!” she shouted back.

“You buried your face in my pussy!”

“You have a mommy fetish!” That last one was a half truth—Michelle never explicitly asked Amy _Can I call you mommy? I want to call you mommy_ , but she let the word slip out in place of ma’am more than once. Anyway, Amy didn’t give a fuck about the truth. She just wanted the last word, and that shut Michelle right up.


End file.
